Ron Perlman Gets His Due

Sons of Anarchy Star Spent a Long Career as a Character Actor Before He Found the Spotlight

ENLARGE

Ron Perlman
Elizabeth Lippman for The Wall Street Journal, Grooming by Nickee David

By

Alexandra Wolfe

Nov. 6, 2013 11:41 a.m. ET

Ron Perlman has starred in blockbuster films such as "Hellboy," "Blade 2" and "Pacific Rim," but chances are you wouldn't recognize him walking down the street. That is because he has played most of his prominent parts—ranging from a prehistoric man to an aging transsexual to the beast in Beauty and the Beast—wearing facial prosthetics and special effects makeup. Breaking out late in life playing comic book-type characters has been a bittersweet success. It comes after spending the bulk of his career in independent films, the kind he prefers to make.

Today, Mr. Perlman, 63, is sitting in a sumptuous suite at the Pierre, the same Manhattan hotel where he used to drop off his passengers when he was a limo driver at the beginning of his career. For the past five years, he has been the star of the current television series, "Sons of Anarchy," now toward the end of its sixth season.

The Many Faces of Ron Perlman

Mr. Perlman in 'Sons of Anarchy.' See a selection of his previous roles. FX/Everett Collection

Though Mr. Perlman's acting career is gaining momentum, he is about to head in a new direction. In January, he will start shooting the first film out of a production company he launched to make independent films. It is a return to his early days as an actor, having already acted in nearly 50 indie films without financial success. In October, he signed a deal to write a memoir co-written with Michael Largo called "Easy Street—The Hard Way" about his life and his witnessing of the corporatization of American culture.

Hollywood's corporate institutions haven't always been kind to him. After growing up in Washington Heights at the top of Manhattan as the son of a repairman who played jazz drums on the side, Mr. Perlman went on to Lehman College in the Bronx and then the University of Minnesota where he graduated with a master's degree in theater. Urged by his father to try to become an actor, Mr. Perlman spent the first seven years of his career barely earning bit parts in low-budget films and theater.

Finally, at age 31, he was hired to play a prehistoric man in the 1981 film "Quest for Fire." It became the first of a series of roles in which he was entirely disguised by special effects makeup. Next he played a hunchback in "Name of the Rose." It wasn't until 2004 that he got his big film break as Hellboy, a slothful superhero.

"I would say that it wasn't until my early 50s where I began to get momentum," says Mr. Perlman. Before that, he would sometimes drive taxis and limos in the gaps between films. "It was kind of all or nothing," he says.

He spent the first few years of his career in New York until he and his wife, Opal, a fashion designer, moved to Los Angeles to have children in 1985. These days, they are bicoastal, and are in town for a charity golf tournament Mr. Perlman hosted to raise money for the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. "As an aging actor and as somebody who's well aware of the twists and turns that takes place in somebody's who's self-employed basically, it resonated deeply inside that there was an organization that was a port in the storm for somebody who's fallen on tough times," he says.

That would have described most of Mr. Perlman's career, had he not met director Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Pacific Rim), a friend and frequent collaborator he credits with his turnaround. In the early 1990s Mr. Del Toro cast Mr. Perlman in the obscure horror movie Cronos (1993). "As a makeup effects aficionado, I was in awe this guy could wear so much makeup and be so expressive," says Mr. Del Toro. Then, Mr. Del Toro cast Mr. Perlman in "Blade 2." The film opened at $40 million, which gave the director the leverage he needed to sell the studios on Mr. Perlman as the lead in "Hellboy," a supernatural superhero film that he had been unsuccessfully shopping for eight years because studios wanted a more bankable star. Mr. Perlman had been considered a character actor who could only play small parts, says Mr. Del Toro. "Some studios found his looks peculiar, but I always felt he was sort of a throwback to the not good-looking, rough and tumble heroes of the past like James Coburn, Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson."

With "Hellboy's" success came Mr. Perlman's own. "I think he's now perceived completely differently," says Mr. Del Toro. "The key to Ron for me is that I always thought of him as the leading man."

For the first time, Mr. Perlman stars in his own skin on "Sons of Anarchy." Sometimes it is a challenge to imagine doing the kinds of violent things his character, Clay Morrow, would on "Sons of Anarchy," but Mr. Perlman says, "I understand his ruthlessness and I understand his determination to preserve his independence to be who he wants to be." While he wouldn't solve problems the same way in real life, he says, "Being a family man myself I understand that the patriarch has responsibilities to keep everyone safe and secure and thriving in every way possible, emotionally, spiritually, and financially—that's the part of myself I loan to Clay."

Mr. Perlman plans to reveal more of this side of himself in his new memoir. Along with his personal life, he will describe how Hollywood has changed from independent studios to a hierarchy of "five families" who control moviemaking. "There's not one network or studio that's not a small line item on a big ledger sheet, whereas when I started out every single studio was a sole proprietorship and was being run by people who…had a passion for what they were doing rather than becoming a profit-making organization," he says. "So then it becomes, what's my solution?" For now, it is making films himself, 10 of which are planned.

Will he still accept roles in big- budget films from the conglomerates he complains of? "Oh yeah," he says. "I'm open to making money—I have no predilections about that, in fact—I have a fondness for money."

Round about when Hellboy was coming out, he spent a couple of weeks in NC doing a 30 minute adaption of a Faulker work -- "Two Soldiers". Worth a look. It won an Oscar for best non-documentary short. His interaction with the featured child in the movie was pretty priceless.

I've loved Ron's work for decades. I really noticed him in 1997 in the otherwise abysmal Alien: Resurrection movie, but he's always one of the best parts in every film he's in. (Can't say I was in his target demographic when he starred in 'Beauty and the Beast.") I'm glad they've finally allowed him out from behind all the prosthetics he used to wear. He may be an unconventional-looking actor, but he has one of the most expressive faces--and intimidating personas--of any actor today.

"Will he still accept roles in big- budget films from the conglomerates he complains of? "Oh yeah," he says. "I'm open to making money—I have no predilections about that, in fact—I have a fondness for money.""

If other actors were as straightforward about our system, we'd be having much fewer problems right now. I wish Ron continued success.

I wish. In July Guillermo was saying that a HB3 movie is "very unlikely." Many factors would have to come together. One positive, which I had to edit out of my initial reply, was that the movie DOES NOT hinge on Mignola's comic book. In fact, where GDT goes with the film won't depend upon the books, so Guillermo could move ahead at any point if he gets the funding, the production team, and Ron together.

Since GDT was unable to get In The Mountains of Madness off the ground, the closest Lovecraft fans will get to a Cthulhu-oriented GDT flick will likely be HB3, if it ever gets made.

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